organize

Today we've got a tutorial for a simple solution to kitchen conversion and recipe recall woes. Sometimes all you need is a simple reminder to keep your kitchen tasks moving along efficiently. Spoonflower friend Gina Sekelsky stops by the blog to explain how to design your own recipe stickers and conversion chart stickers (in your own handwriting!), get them digitally printed with Spoonflower, and installed in your kitchen cabinets in no time!

I love to cook and bake, but I seem to always forget a few simple conversions: Is it 3 teaspoons to a tablespoon or 3 tablespoons to a quarter cup? I decided to put some things I’m forever looking up inside of my kitchen cupboards: a few beloved recipes, a list of our favorite meals, and this conversion chart. Originally I was going to paint them all right on the cabinet door, but stickers will let me change my mind more often. And since they’re reusable, I could even give the conversion chart to a friend if I ever start remembering without it!

Since I work as a hand-lettering artist, I go through a lot of paper and pens. My favorite paper to write on is Hammermill Laser Print—it’s bright white, super-smooth, and opaque. I have many different pens for writing and drawing, but for most simple projects I use the Uniball Vision Exact in the micro size (black ink is my favorite). Find a pen that feels comfortable to you, even if you have to try a dozen different brands, styles, or sizes to get just the right one. Once you’ve got your basic supplies, you can get started creating your design.

We devoted the month of January to sharing projects to inspire us to transform those unloved items in our homes into treasures and to reorganize our spaces beautifully. Anda from the Etsy Europe team shares a final brilliant organizational DIY, fabric hanging shelves.

Note 1: I live in Europe, and all the rulers in my house are in centimeters, so I created this tutorial in metric. For best results, please measure in cm! I tried my best to convert all measurements to inches anyway, in case you don’t have a way to convert on your own.

Note 2: I didn’t have any velcro when I took photos so I faked it with felt. Please use real velcro or your shelves will just fall off the closet rod! 🙂

With right sides together, stitch around hanging strap, leaving an opening large enough for turning. Trim corners. Turn right side out and press. Slip stitch opening closed.

Sew one side of velcro at one end, flip over and sew other side of velcro at opposite end.

Find center of the top outer fabric piece and measure 1cm from center in each direction and mark. Do the same with hanging strap.

Pin down and sew two straight lines to attach hanging strap to top piece of shelves. You probably want to sew over these lines a few times for security.

Create the top of the shelf (the outer 23x32cm piece you just attached the hanging strap to, and one inner 23x32cm piece):

Press under 1.5cm (3/4”) on back edge of top shelf piece and inner shelf piece.

With right sides together, sew a straight stitch across opposite side (the front edge of the shelf).

The longer edges of the top shelf should still be open.

Flip top shelf right side out and press. Center an inner piece along one side of top shelf, so its right side is facing the right side of the bottom of the top shelf. There should be around 1cm fabric extending past the front and back of the shelf. Stitch along this side. Repeat on opposite side with a second inner rectangle.

You should end up with something that looks like this.

Create more shelves (inner fabric 23×32 pieces):

Take two inner fabric pieces and repeat step 2 to make the second shelf. (First press 1.5cm under on back edge of each side, and then with right sides together stitch across front edge.)
Attach this shelf to the side pieces of the first shelf by facing the right side of the top of shelf to the right side of each inner piece above it and straight stitching along this edge.

You’ll always have about 1cm extra fabric extending past the front and back of the shelves, and will need this later when adding the outside.

Attach two more inner side pieces. Make sure you have the front of your shelves all at the front— you’ll be sliding fiber board into the open backs of each shelf at the end.

Repeat steps with next shelf. Repeat steps to make the bottom shelf, only this time use your second outer fabric 23x32cm piece for the bottom of the last shelf. Press everything. You’ll have something like this (seen from the bottom).

Add the outer sides:

Flatten out your shelves.

Face and pin the right side of one long 32×69 rectangle to the top & edges of the right side of one inner part. Everything else will be in the middle.

Straight stitch around this edge—you’ll have a sort of lumpy sandwich. Be careful not to catch the finished shelving fronts and backs as you sew this part.

Straight stitch around sides and top, leaving the bottom open. Turn right side out and repeat with second outer piece. Turn right side out again, and start to get excited because it looks almost finished and it’s kind of magical.

Slip stitch the bottom of each outer piece to the bottom shelf piece. Press!

Finish:

Slide your fiber board into the backs of your shelves and slip stitch the backs of shelves closed. Holy moley, you made some hanging shelves! In the photo I have the hanging strap wrapped around a coat hanger, but the strap will work best when wrapped around a bar in your closet. Be sure to use strong Velcro if you plan on hanging lots of heavy stuff. Now fill it with sweaters and underthings or whatever you like! You’re done!

About Our Guest Blogger

Anda Corrie is an American illustrator, Etsy designer, and émigré living in Berlin, Germany with her small family. In her spare time she obsesses over vintage children’s books, makes homemade schnapps, sews tiny dresses that her 4-year-old stubbornly refuses to wear, and draws. Visit her Spoonflower shop for some lovely hand drawn fabric designs and her Etsy shop, Boosterseat.

This week in our January refreshing & reorganizing DIY series we're sharing custom label tutorials for beautiful organization. Allie showed us how she designed fabric labels to wrangle her fabric stash and Caroline shared a decal label tutorial to make finding your pantry or workspace goods a snap. Today, Laurie shares her Mason jar decal labels for a colorful way to order your crafting and sewing supplies.

There is nothing I find more satisfying than good old-fashioned organization. It’s like a crisp breeze of fresh air that opens up new perspectives. Really, a good organization project does this to me! And if I take things one step further and combine organization with clean design, crafty goodness, and beautiful color, I'm in heaven! Here's a simple tutorial to organize all of your lovely making materials into an artful display.

I designed my labels for craft and sewing supplies plus a few bonus labels to organize or decorate other jar lids. You can find the decal label kit in my Spoonflower shop.

Supplies:

An assortment of Mason jars, quart-sized or larger with lids and bands. (I used the regular mouth jars, not the wide-mouth kind.)

First, using a cutting board or mat, straight edge and an X-Acto blade (or sharp scissors), carefully cut along the blue dotted line between each decal.

Once you’ve separated each decal, carefully cut around each individual circle using your scissors.

Remove the backing of each decal one at a time, and place each sticky side down onto a Mason jar lid, pressing the center of the decal into position. If you misalign your decal, just reposition and repeat.

Once the decal is centered, press from the center out towards the lid edges with your thumb to smooth out any bumps.

I opted to leave the silver finish as-is on my lid bands but if you want to spray paint your lid bands, you can do this now. Outside, paint the screw-on bands (but not the lid that the decal is attached to) then allow the bands to dry completely.

Fill the jars with the corresponding crafty goodness, top with a decaled lid, then attach the bands! Go on, I’ll wait.

Use the extra decals for anything you'd like! Arrange them on your wall, write on them with a Sharpie for your own custom label, or stick them on your laptop.

About Our Guest Blogger

In addition to being a fabric-obsessed Spoonflower employee by night, Laurie Shipley is a freelance graphic designer, surface pattern designer and illustrator, a mom, writer, crafter and cook. Her work is not limited to a medium or genre, although her current focus is a meticulous juxtaposition of simplistic and intricate pattern illustration for textiles, wallpapers and package design. She dwells in Durham, NC in a continuous creative environment with her son and two cats. Follow her on Twitter and check out her work.

This week for our January project series to show our spaces a little love, we're sharing a few ways to create custom labels for beautiful organization. Yesterday, Allie showed us how she designed fabric labels to catalogue her sewing room fabric stash. Today Caroline shares a tutorial for creating decal labels to personalize kitchen cabinet storage.

At the new Spoonflower office we have many simple and plain cabinets that all look exactly alike, so I figured using our wall decals I could label them for ease of use. Here's a simple way to organize your kitchen pantry, workplace, or any other space where some classification would come in handy.

I used Adobe Illustrator to create the labels– the tools in Illustrator make it simple to quickly create files with exact measurements. I determined how big the labels should be by measuring the space where I wanted to display them on the cabinet. Once I figured out the sizes my labels would be, I chose the 15"X15" decal size for my project.

In Illustrator I made a new file that was exactly 15" x 15". Seems obvious, right? But the next part is the trick. Using the object tool, click once on the canvas and create a square that is also 15" x 15" and white. Move the square so that it fits exactly into the canvas area so your file will be exactly 15" square. This ensures that none of your image will be cut off when you print your labels!

While still selected, lock the selection.

Next, using the object tool again, create your labels, using the measurements you took when you started. Choose a shape for your labels, and select a font and color(s) you like. I made brown rectangles to coordinate with the cabinet color.

Then I chose the font "StrangeLoveNextWide" for the text and made it white.

The final image will look like this (I printed the fish as something fun to use the blank space in the square decal).

Once you have your file ready, it's time to export it to a PNG of 150dpi. This will optimize it for easy upload to Spoonflower.

I was very excited when I got my decal! Next it was time to cut out the labels. I used a cutting mat, a non-slippery ruler and a rotary blade.

Once the labels were trimmed, I peeled the backing off and smoothed them onto the cabinets.

Voila– now everyone knows where the good stuff is located!

About Our Guest Author

When Caroline isn't working on Spoonflower collateral or the website, she is home cooking up a storm or practicing her kickboxing moves and acting like a kid in a candy shop with her new sewing machine.